3.1. Drug Delivery/Solubilization
The drug discovery and drug delivery of new drugs often face challenges such as safety, efficacy, cost, and availability
[14][15][16][17][18]. To overcome this, existing drugs are now modified to improve their formulation or drug conversion (salts/ester), to introduce new combinations of existing drugs, or to change the route of drug administration
[14][15]. The transport and processing of pharmaceuticals requires a solvent, and this purpose is fulfilled using water, unless the drug is a hydrophobic drug that is poorly soluble or insoluble
[15]. Due to low permeation and bioavailability, the low solubility of available or developing drugs influences the therapeutic action
[15]. For the oral drug delivery system, the improvement of drug bioavailability and solubility limits the drug delivery/administration
[15]. One of the strategies is to have an improved formulation, with active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) being encapsulated, dispersed, or loaded inside a drug carrier
[15][16]. One such study is the absorption of sulfathiazole from a eutectic mixture with urea compared to the absorption of ordinary sulfathiazole
[17]. Thus, various studies
[19][20][21] are conducted on deep eutectic solvent (DES) and eutectic mixture to improve the API solubility and dissolution behavior.
The approved drugs or drugs under development are poorly water-soluble, so one of the characteristics to improve the drug efficiency, permeability, and bioavailability is enhancing drug hydrophilicity
[15][18]. For instance, manipulating drug formulation may increase the solubility and dissolution rate of BCS class II (Biopharmaceutics Classification System II) substances in gastrointestinal fluids, increasing bioavailability
[15][22]. The efficiency of poorly water-soluble drugs can be improved by modifying API dosage, novel drug administration routes, and adopting a suitable combination of active ingredients
[15][18]. One strategy is to form API dispersion inside a biocompatible polymer matrix or search for alternative solvents
[19][14]. In this regard, ionic liquids have been utilized as a suitable solvent system for API, owing to the unique physicochemical properties of IL
[15][16][17][18]. A suitable cation–anion combination can be made to synthesize numerous ILs
[15] with appropriate physical properties desirable for the dissolution/loading of APIs
[15]. However, ILs still suffer from biodegradability or toxicity limitations
[15]. So, a search for a new biocompatible solvent system with negligible toxicity for API dissolution or solubility is required to improve and develop drug formulations
[15][18].
One such biocompatible, cheap, less toxic solvent being studied is based on DESs
[15][18][22]. DESs have been used for the dissolution of API, and DESs are prepared using pharmaceuticals as one of the components. So, the following section describes these two applications of DESs.